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Some reflections on an early Mahāyāna text Hastikakṣyasūtra*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2014

Zhen Liu  and
Huaiyu Chen
Zhen Liu*
Affiliation:
Fudan University, Shanghai
Huaiyu Chen*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, Tempe
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper attempts both to transliterate and translate a newly published Sanskrit fragment of the Hastikakṣyasūtra and compare it to its corresponding Chinese and Tibetan translations. This fragment is part of the Hoernle Collection housed in the British Library. Through a comparison of all extant titles of this text found in both the Chinese and Tibetan versions and their reconstruction in Sanskrit, this work further deciphers why some titles use the metaphor of the effort or power of an elephant. In analysing the Chinese and Tibetan versions, this paper suggests that the content and structure of this text shed some light on the early development of Mahāyāna sūtras.

Keywords

HastikakṣyasūtraSanskrit fragmentEarly Mahāyāna textDharmarakṣaDharmamitraDhāraṇīBuddhist metaphor
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 293 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2014 

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Footnotes

*

We would like to extend our gratitude to Dr Gudrun Melzer, Professor Ingo Strauch, and Dr Jennifer L. Eichman for their invaluable help. We also want to thank two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful corrections and suggestions.

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